


Unexpected and Strange

by nagi_schwarz



Series: In a Galaxy Far, Far Away [7]
Category: Star Wars, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: International Fanworks Day 2017, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 17:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9773903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "any, any, an unexpected leader"Aiden Ford isn't sure what to expect out of Nathan O'Neill as his new CO.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For IFD 2017

Aiden had always known Stargate Command would be a weird posting, yes, but he’d expected that all of the weirdness would be - external. Aliens. Alien tech. Alien planets. With his assignment to the Atlantis Expedition, an alien galaxy. For that first harrowing twenty-four hours, Aiden had endured pretty much all the emergency do-or-die weirdness he’d mentally prepared for: alien tech (the sunken city, Wraith culling beams and darts and hive ships), aliens (John the Jedi; Teyla and the Athosians; the Wraith), and alien planets (Lantea, Athos).

But then Aiden had accidentally awakened all the Wraith and he’d mercy-killed his own CO, and now he had a brand new CO. Nathan O’Neill was a clone of none other than General Jonathan J. O'Neill, one of the pioneers of the whole Stargate Program. As far as Aiden had known, First Lieutenant O'Neill had been assigned to the expedition because of his super ATA gene and was removed from the chain of command due to his scientific importance.

Colonel Sumner had been strangely tolerant of young O'Neill. Aiden had assumed it was due to nepotism, that Lieutenant O'Neill was related to Jack O'Neill, who had specifically chosen Sumner for this post. Aiden had heard from some of the other Marines that Lieutenant O'Neill, who didn’t look a day over eighteen, had attained his rank on account of being a prodigy and also being an Eagle Scout.

Given O'Neill's propensity toward sarcasm and levity, Aiden hadm’t figured him as one of the super polite, over eager Boy Scout types. The way O’Neill managed to look both bored and confused whenever McKay had rambled at him, Aiden hadn’t put much credence into O’Neill’s being a prodigy either until he saw O’Neill decimate Sumner in a game of chess. As an officer, Aiden was college-educated, and he understood how it sometimes paid to play dumb. The rest of the Marines had followed Sumner’s cue and treated O’Neill with a mixture of paternal fondness and respect. All of them were older than him.

And then the truth came out. Nathan O'Neill was biologically only sixteen, but he possessed all of the training, skills, and memories of Jack O'Neill as of late 2004, in the seventh year of the Stargate Program. It made sense that in Sumner’s permanent absence O’Neill was made acting CO. It was apparent that only Dr. Weir and Sumner had known who O’Neill really was. Aiden was still trying to wrap his head around it. A new CO who was literally a teenager, and not even a legal adult at that. Given that Aiden would have been acting CO whenever Sumner was offworld without him or temporarily incapacitated, to not be the military leader of Atlantis after Sumner’s death felt strange. That the new military leader of the expedition was Lieutenant O’Neill and all he entailed was, somehow, more strange than the Wraith or the Jedi.

In addition to having a clone teenager for a CO, the whole Rodney-and-John thing was terribly unexpected. It had been an open secret at McMurdo that Rodney had an epic crush on Colonel Samantha Carter. According to Teyla, the Jedi were some kind of mystical, quasi-monastic order whose calling was to be knights and warriors maintaining peace and justice in the galaxy. If the symbol on John’s wristband was accurate, John was also a very skilled pilot.

So John and Rodney being a thing was just - bizarre. Neither of them belonged to the military, so they weren’t violating legs. And the truth of it was that if Aiden had never walked in on them while they were kissing on one of the balconies, he’d never have known. John was fiercely protective of Rodney as it was, followed him all over the city and offworld and only submitted to O’Neill’s gate-training regimen reluctantly, and so Aiden hadn’t thought they were especially close.

He was very surprised when he took this knowledge to O'Neill and O’Neill had said, “John’s the last of his kind. Let him enjoy what happiness he can find.”

So Aiden tried to mentally prepare himself for strangeness on all fronts, no matter the source. He thought he was doing pretty well - missing kids, living shadows, life-sucking bugs that were Wraith ancestors, Teyla wearing a Wraith tracker by mistake - and then O'Neill had to go and surprise him again.

“You’re invited, too,” O’Neill said to Aiden while they were standing in the chow line. “I want as many people as possible to contribute."

“To what, sir?”

“To John’s and Teyla’s cultural education, of course. I mostly left that to Daniel when it came to Teal'c because Daniel’s an anthropologist, and now Teal’c likes noir detective films and this sci-fi show called Firefly. He’s seen the entire series eight times.”

Aiden had only met Teal’c a handful of times. As someone who lived sci-fi, he wasn’t much inclined to watch it. “Yes, sir. How, exactly, are we educating John and Teyla about Earth culture?”

“A bunch of things - ball games, board games and card games, movies, music and dancing. Something once a month. It’ll boost morale, too. This month is movie night. Elizabeth and I have it all worked out - popcorn, an epic pillow fort in one of the common rooms, a laptop, a projector, and a screen and Dr. Kusanagi's one terrabyte external hard drive full of every movie under the sun and then some. As John’s teammates, each of us gets to nominate one culturally significant item for him to watch. I, of course have just the right episode of The Simpsons all lined up.”

“What are my choices?" Aiden asked.

“Ask to see the drive. Plus Kusanagi has a list of people’s selections, so we don’t double up.” O'Neill clapped Aiden on the shoulder. “Good luck and choose well, grasshopper.”

Aiden watched O’Neill saunter away, hands in his pockets, whistling, and wondered what the hell life was going to be like with that man as his commanding officer.

 

*

 

Kusanagi’s movie drive was mindblowing. If Aiden didn’t know better, he’d think she had possession of every single movie made since the dawn of time, plus at least thirty years’ worth of television shows. Everything from The Simpsons to MASH to a whole bunch of obscure anime that had never really been Aiden’s thing. She had a list, too, of people’s donations to John and Teyla’s cultural education.

The list was interesting, to say the least.

Dr. Weir had chosen Disney’s _Beauty and the Beast_. O’Neill had chosen a Haunted Tree House episode of The Simpsons. Rodney had chosen an episode of Star Trek, something about tribbles. Zelenka, who had tiny nephews, had chosen the first Harry Potter movie. Markham had chosen the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Stackhouse had chosen a seemingly random episode of MacGyver. Grodin had chosen an episode of Wormhole X-treme, because that guy had a warped sense of humor. Batman and Superman movies had been nominated by the Marines as a group, and the scientists had nominated the first X-Men movie as a group. Kusanagi’s selection was some anime Aiden had never heard of.

He had the sense that most of the movies had been chosen with John in mind, and he wondered what, if anything, Teyla would enjoy. Maybe an episode of Xena? Teyla kicked ass like Xena, but she wasn’t all - aggressive and occasionally insensitive like Xena. Teyla seemed like the kind of person who would enjoy something a bit more sedate, more gentle. Aiden liked action flicks just as much as the next Marine, so he really had to wrack his memory for something that his Grandma had liked.

Singing in the Rain. Grandma loved that movie. So Aiden wrote it down on the list as his recommendation, gave it back to Kusanagi.

She beamed at him, her eyes huge behind her giant glasses. “Excellent choice! If you ever want to watch movies, you bring me a flash drive, I give you movies.”

That was actually a really, really good offer. If they were stuck in Atlantis forever, at least they’d have an epic movie and TV show collection.

“Also books,” Kusanagi said. “I have many books.”

“Thanks,” Aiden said. “I’ll think about it.”

 

*

For a man who never seemed to take things seriously when he was off-duty, O’Neill seemed to be taking Movie Day very seriously indeed. He was directing the combat engineers to build a pillow fort that better resembled a bedouin palace tent. The floor of one of the common rooms had been covered by thick carpets and blankets. Brightly-colored scarves had been hung from the ceiling, forming a gauzy roof and making the light softer where it filtered through. The floor was strewn with pillows of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The scientists had rigged up a laptop, a projector, and a screen, all of which were connected to Kusanagi’s special external hard drive. John and Teyla had the best spots, in the center. Teyla had an entire bowl of popcorn to herself, and Rodney was sitting beside John.

Dr. Weir was the master of ceremonies, announcing each selection, who’d chosen it, and the cultural importance of the selection.

Aiden had been expecting to kick back and zone in and out of the movies and shows as they played. He’d pay attention to the ones he liked or was interested in, and he’d nap or get up and stretch his legs during the ones he didn’t care about.

It wasn’t that easy, of course. The first selection was Dr. Weir’s, and they’d had to pause almost immediately so someone could explain to John and Teyla about animation. Apparently John’s viewing experiences all growing up had been holo-vids, which were 3D image projections, but everything was in shades of blue. He was fascinated by both the colors and the flatness. Teyla, by comparison, had never seen drawings thus, and she wondered if all Tau’ri possessed such artistic skill.

Given that Teyla and John were aliens from other planets and John had telekinesis, Aiden shouldn’t have been surprised that they thought magic was real and the Beast was an actual species, so one of the anthropologists had to interject and explain about magic and myth.

The last thing Aiden had expected was for, well, practically everyone to know the lyrics to all of the songs and turn it into a sing-along. Teyla looked startled but amused when the people around her started to sing. By default Kusanagi had been assigned the role of Belle, and other people filled in as necessary (Grodin made a passable Gaston, Markham a decent LeFou, and Aiden was quietly embarrassed by how well he knew the cartoon, except that it had been Lara’s favorite when they were kids).

John whispered to Rodney, nudged him, but Rodney just rolled his eyes and refused to sing at all.

When they happened upon the castle with the talking appliances, John was interested, wondered if the castle was like Atlantis, which made Aiden wonder just how much he connected with the city, if he thought other buildings could be interactive. The gene therapy had taken for Rodney and a few other personnel, maybe a third of them, but John’s connection with the city went above and beyond anything they’d ever witnessed, even with O’Neill.

People drifted in and out, brought snacks, stood up and stretched their legs. In Aiden’s high school English class, he’d learned how Shakespearean theater wasn’t nearly as serious in Shakespeare’s time as it was today, that people were noisy and rowdy, eating and drinking and gambling and otherwise being irreverent during shows, and Aiden wondered if this was what it had been like.

He napped during Star Trek, got up and stretched his legs during Harry Potter.

Apparently there were enough Buffy fans that during the musical episode, people could sing along. Teyla and John were intrigued by the notion of vampires who, like Wraith, took other people’s life essence to stay alive. John was especially contemplative of Spike, who, despite his monstrous existence, seemed able to generally co-exist with humans, seemed aware of the inherent evil in what he was.

People continued to drift in and out. Apparently the whole base was invited, even if it wasn’t their designated Sunday, and someone - most likely Kusanagi - had sent out an email with the viewing schedule attached, so people could come see the show or movie they were most interested in and then get back to work.

Teyla had somehow become an avid lover of popcorn, and since this was partially her special day, she didn’t have to share her bowl, but people kept bringing refills for everyone else. Aiden wondered just how much popcorn anyone had thought to bring and what other treats were squirreled away in the quartermaster’s supply. John didn’t care much for popcorn, but he and Rodney were sharing a box of red vines. Given that everyone had only been given one shoe box’s worth of personal items to bring with them, Aiden had no idea where all this contraband candy and junk food was coming from.

O’Neill was definitely a teenager, though. Aiden wondered how he hadn’t seen it before. Probably because he carried himself like an adult, and plenty of people around him treated him as an adult, and it had been easy to believe he was an adult, but he took down food like a teenager. Popcorn. Red vines. Junior mints. Black licorice. Maltesers. Whatever he could get his hands on. He was indiscriminate. If it was in his reach, it was gone.

The blanket-pillow fort was very crowded for the pilot episode of Wormhole X-treme. Aiden had heard of it - everyone in the program had heard of it - but he’d never seen it. And it was - bad. Corny. Ridiculous techno-babble. Over-the-top aliens. Teal’c had been reimagined as a robot. But it was also kind of hilarious, because everyone who had ever been on a gate team knew that sometimes reality was even more ridiculous than fiction. Teyla was amazed that the members of Stargate Command had been so extraordinary so as to warrant people telling their legends.

John, who’d grown up with holo-vid shows, had a better understanding of how TV shows worked, but he seemed to think that the show meant the Stargate Program was well-known and popular on Earth. He was very intrigued when he learned that Colonel Danning was essentially based on O’Neill (he’d handled the news of O’Neill’s being a clone with much more aplomb than Teyla had). When he wondered if Dr. Levant was based on Rodney, Rodney spluttered indignantly and his fragile ego had to be soothed with kisses. Most of the Marines who were Stargate Command veterans confessed that there was a drinking game attached to the show, and they promised to teach it to John as soon as they were off-duty.

John decided that MacGyver was even more like Rodney, which cheered Rodney immensely. It was with a surprising amount of glee that Rodney explained the concept of superheroes to John. Rodney was, apparently, quite the Batman fan. Some of the other scientists were Superman fans, and a vicious debate ensued, that was only silenced by O’Neill threatening push-ups to anyone who didn’t knock it off and let them get to the next movie.

“Really, sir?” Markham asked when Dr. Weir announced Aiden’s selection. “Singing in the Rain?”

“It’s a classic,” O’Neill said. “My ex-wife loved that movie. She had the soundtrack. She’d make me dance with her, sometimes. In the kitchen, while she was making dinner. You have good taste, Ford.”

“Thank you, sir,” Aiden said. While it wasn’t a film he’d watch for fun, it was a film that reminded him of his grandmother, and he missed her (and he might never see her again).

“Ex-wife, sir?” Markham asked.

“Yeah,” O’Neill drawled, and that was the end of that.

Aiden was pretty pleased at how well Teyla liked the film. It launched a discussion of the history of film, from black-and-white silent films to color films to musicals, which was valuable, from a cultural perspective. Teyla asked if many men on Earth were quite so talented at dancing.

“Not anymore,” O’Neill said. “Used to be, back in the day, if a fella wanted even half a shot with a dame, he had to be able to soft-shoe.”

“Now you’re just being facetious,” Rodney said.

“Am I?” O’Neill asked. “Ford, you been to an Officer’s Ball? All dressed up, fine dame on your arm?”

“I’ve been to one, sir,” Aiden said. He’d brought his grandma, who was very proud of his being a Marine.

“Ladies like a man who can dance when it counts,” O’Neill said.

“What about singing?” Teyla asked. “Do women on Earth appreciate men who can sing?”

“If they can sing well,” Rodney said.

“Can you dance, Nathan?” Teyla asked.

“You bet I can.” He grinned at her.

Teyla rose up and said, “Show me.”

Aiden blinked, as did several other people, but sure enough, O’Neill jumped up. He waited till the next song in the movie began, and then he pulled her into a dance frame and showed her how to do a pretty simple step in the small space they had cleared. O’Neill hadn’t been kidding, though. He was a solid dancer, competent at leading.

“Dancing on Earth is pretty sexist,” O’Neill admitted. “As long as the man can lead, everything else is fine.”

John nudged Rodney. “What if two men dance?”

Rodney was flustered. “I, well, I’ve never danced with another man, so -”

“Taller man has to lead,” O’Neill said. “So you don’t crash into other couples on the dance floor.”

Teyla was a graceful dancer, followed him smoothly. She smiled, pleased, as he spun her around and twirled her and, at the very end, even managed to dip her without dropping her.

Aiden couldn’t help it - he applauded. He’d never appreciated just who O’Neill was, because he was full of sarcasm and dry humor, but O’Neill was - older. Old enough to be Aiden’s father. Had some of the same old-fashioned manners and habits as Aiden’s grandfather. The others joined in, cheering and laughing, and for all that O’Neill was constantly proving strange, maybe he was good at this leading thing after all. He had fine command skills on gate missions, but then he’d been on a gate team for nearly a decade. When it came to leading in general - Aiden had always found it odd, that he’d only been in command under the Mountain for a year before being sent to Washington.

The final selection of the marathon was Kusanagi’s pick, some kind of giant robot anime. Some of the other scientists were familiar with it, pleased to see it on the list.

“For the record,” Rodney said to John, “we don’t send soldiers into battle that young. Fourteen and fifteen is completely inappropriate for combat.”

“I began my Jedi training when I was three,” John said. “Much older than that and the training doesn’t really go well.”

“How old do you have to be to become a Jedi master?” Rodney asked.

“Not everyone is the same age,” John said. “Anyone who passes the trials becomes a Jedi Knight. I had just passed the trials when the war against the Wraith escalated.”

Rodney said, “How old are you?”

John shrugged. “I was born on Naboo, but I traveled so much within the galaxy that I stopped keeping track.”

“How many hours are in a day on Naboo?” Rodney asked.

What followed was Rodney quizzing John extensively about how time worked on Naboo. Between them, they managed to figure out that John was only twenty years old, in Naboo years, but closer to thirty-five in Earth years.

“Twenty?” O’Neill asked. “You cradle-robber, McKay.”

“What is a cradle-robber?” Teyla asked.

Aiden, amused by this aspect of cultural education, said, “It’s someone who dates another person who is much, much younger.”

“How old are you, Rodney?” Teyla asked.

“Thirty-six,” Rodney said sourly, blushing.

“So by Earth standards, Rodney is not a cradle-robber,” Teyla said.

“But by John’s standards he is,” Aiden said smugly, and Rodney blushed even more.

“But by my standards Rodney and I are the same age,” John said, “so no robbing has happened.” He smiled at Rodney, and Rodney smiled back grudgingly.

Some of the soldiers looked away, uncomfortable. Some watched, wide-eyed. O’Neill, Aiden noticed, looked neither uncomfortable nor curious. Just - wistful.

Kusanagi said, “Here’s the good part,” and immediately everyone’s attention snapped back to the screen.

Aiden thought it was only fitting, that the main giant robot had angel wings.

O’Neill said, softly, “Now, that’s what I call a war machine.”

“Would you pilot one if you could, sir?”

“Well, seeing how this body is only sixteen, I’d be the best candidate for that kind of gig, wouldn’t you think?”

O’Neill’s body was only sixteen, but his mind was much, much older.

“I would think,” Aiden agreed.

Rodney spluttered, horrified, when John asked Kusanagi if she had any more like this movie, because he liked the bright colors and the characters and the space battles.

“Well,” Dr. Weir said, “I think we can call this first cultural day a success.”

“I agree,” O’Neill said.

Aiden couldn’t wait to see what O’Neill had up his sleeve next.


End file.
